Real Life Radio

David J: Today, on Real Life Radio.

Jack Hibbs: If you're here tonight and you're hungry and you want to grow and you want to have your life changed, as the Bible says, from glory to glory, you're becoming more like Jesus, that's what we're interested in. Why? Because that's what God is interested in.

David J: This is real life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David J, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's word, the Bible. You ever feel like your Christian values are under constant assault? In a world where biblical truth is often labeled hateful or backward, how do we stand firm without becoming combative or isolated? Pastor Jack Hibbs wants to help you find answers with this month's featured resource, When Culture Hates You. It's written by Natasha Crain, and in this straight-talking book, you'll discover how to tackle tough conversations, maintain biblical convictions, and respond to cultural hostility with both grace and truth.

Now, think of it as your essential guide for navigating a world that often views faith as the enemy. You'll learn how to speak confidently on issues of morality, identity, and belief without losing sight of God's love because sometimes the strongest stance is one that balances conviction with compassion. Now, if you're ready to stand strong in a ever-shifting culture, look no further. When Culture Hates You, it's available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com/realradio. One more time, jackhibbs.com/realradio. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series now called The Parables of Jesus and a message titled Parable of the Barren Tree.

You see, whenever Jesus spoke to the crowds, he often spoke to them using relatable stories with common everyday themes that the Bible calls parables. Now, in this parable, Jesus is teaching us about the importance of Christian growth. You see, like a fig tree ripe with fruit, growth and fruitfulness is a very serious thing to God, and so to us. We can't be a light to the world and a witness to our salvation without growing and maturing in the faith. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that God has a purpose for our life and that as Christians, if we're not growing and responding, then we're backsliding.

Even if we're just barely hanging on to Christ and his word in a difficult trial, we are still advancing. Now, with his message called Parable of the Barren Tree, here's pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: Bless the study of your word to our hearts. Lord, this is tough stuff, this parable tonight. And so Lord, we pray that there'd be no one outside of the conviction, the love, the encouragement, the admonition, the exhortation that your Holy Spirit would seek for us to know. So Lord, bless now, we pray, in Jesus' name, and all God's people said

Congregation: Amen.

Jack Hibbs: Amen. Grab your Bibles tonight and turn, if you would, to Luke's Gospel, chapter 13, and we are looking at technically, I think it's our 14th look at the parables. And tonight, we come to the parable of the barren tree. Some have mentioned it as the parable of the barren fig tree. It is a fig tree that's mentioned, but as we look at it tonight, it is uh a parable that is a little unnerving and it's supposed to be. Now, note takers, Bible students, which I pray all of you are, make notes in your margins or in the notes that you're keeping that this parable has a twofold application.

By and large, primarily, Jesus is addressing this parable toward the nation of Israel. There's no doubt about it. When you when you read Luke chapter 13, the structure of it all, Jesus is grieved, he's disappointed, he's hurt at the fact that Well, John says it. In John chapter 1 John says that he came unto his own, but his own received him not. John chapter 1 beginning in the verse 10, 11, and 12. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become children of God. Luke records Jesus's what? Depression, as it were, over the fact that the nation has rejected him at every turn.

Jesus comes and reveals first to the house of Israel the Gospel message. And the prophets foretold that that's the nation that God would give the word of God to, the Gospel to. And God's intention for Israel was to be the Gospel pump, as it were, to spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Now, that was not realized. God didn't fail. In fact, even the rejection of the Gospel was prophesied in Scripture. But don't think that the plans of God have been defeated. That's not the case. I think you even know the answer of the ultimate fulfillment.

The book of Revelation tells us that there's a period yet coming. During the 7-year tribulation period, where the Bible tells us there's going to be 144,000 Jews that are filled with the Holy Spirit, that take the Gospel, preach the Gospel to the world. And the Bible says that the number that they reach and are converted to Christ during the tribulation period is so great that no man can number them. It's going to make the last 2,000 years look like a joke. What the church was so awkward at doing, these 144,000 Jews in the book of Revelation will accomplish with incredible speed and power.

Can you imagine having 144,000 Apostle Paul type guys running around the globe preaching the Gospel? That is going to be some And I think we'll get to watch that. Of course, our vantage point will be from heaven. We'll be peeking over a cloud saying, You go, guys. It's going to be amazing. But in our parable, Jesus is addressing and speaking to the nation of Israel. However, that doesn't let us off the hook because the whole thrust of this is what proves to the world and to one another, to us, if someone is truly a believer, a real Christian.

And do you understand tonight when I say the word Christian, maybe you're Jewish tonight. You're either here or you're watching or you're listening. You need to understand something. The the term Christian is not a Gentile creation. It's not a Gentile word. The word Christian means to follow Messiah, to follow Christ. So it's it's Old Testament, New Testament reality. One who follows God based upon the revelation of God's word. Look, if we could roll back the hands of time, we could ask King David. David, do you have any problem with us labeling you a Messiah follower?

We could ask that of Noah. We could ask that of Elijah. We could ask that of Abraham. To be a Messiah follower in the Old Testament is to be a Christ follower in the new. Christ is simply the Greek rendering of the Hebrew Messiah. Are you a Christian tonight? If you are, you are a Messiah follower. You are following the Messiah. And your Messiah is Jesus Christ. I love the fact that that is true. So look, in Luke chapter 13, look at verse 6. We'll be in verses 6 through 9 tonight, the parable of the barren tree.

And there in verse 6, it says, He also spoke this parable. A certain man had a fig tree. You got to circle the word fig tree there, those words. There's no doubt it refers to the nation of Israel. Planted it in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, Look, for 3 years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down. Why does it use up the ground? But he, that is the keeper, answered and said to him, Sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and fertilize it.

And if it bears fruit well, great. But if not, after that, you can cut it down. So the nature of the parable is whoever is believing in God, are they producing fruit? And this is very interesting. And as we look at this tonight, you've got to look at this parable to yourself. It's essential that we do that. Now, um you think about growth. God is all about growth in our lives. He's Look, you read the Bible, it's all about growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Growing, growing, growing. If we are not growing, we are what, church?

We are backsliding if we're not growing. Uh in Christianity, there's no place for stagnant existence. It it doesn't work. We we are always progressing, sometimes ever so slowly, ever so uh small it seems, but we're to be moving on. Even if you've been whacked upside the heart or head with a trial and it seems like you've been stopped dead in your tracks, just hanging on in sheer faith and trust in God and sometimes Have you ever gone through a great trial? Sometimes that takes all the energy you can imagine just to hang on in those dark moments, stormy moments.

But listen, that's what God is requiring of you in the moment. And though you may feel like you're not advancing, your faith, hanging on to his promises, is advancing. But nowhere are we sanctioned as Christians to be going backward and to be receding as it were, but to be growing. And everything about God is growth. Um I know Isn't the motto of uh this city where everything grows? Isn't that what the motto is on the police cars or something like that or the city motto where everything grows? And that's cool, and that's fine, and that's great.

But you know what? I I've been praying and I've prayed for many years, Lord, help me out in the millennium. When you when you give us responsibilities, can you just give me any little portion of any one of the Hawaiian Islands to be my Why? Because I love how anything everything grows. In fact, the Galilee of Israel reminds me a lot of Hawaii. It It You stick anything in the ground and it grows. It's amazing. God's into growth. I love that. Look, do any of you like plants and flowers and gardening? Raise your hand. Man, it's okay.

I'll raise both hands. That's my thing. I In fact, I want to be in the millennium in one of the Hawaiian Islands as a gardener. That's my That's my goal in life. There's something about planting and seeing something grow. There's a awesome connection personally. And look, I'm on good ground here. God made a garden and planted Adam in the midst of his garden to take care of it. God's into that stuff. Something divine about it. God's into growth. So the question tonight, the challenge tonight is, Are you growing? Can you say that you are advancing in the faith?

Are you seeing a difference? Growth is very serious to God. And so as we look at this tonight, the parable of the barren tree, point number one, look at it in verse 6. God's purpose for life. God has a purpose for life. God's purpose for life is this. In Colossians chapter 1 verse 10, the Bible says that you may walk worthy of the Lord. That is church, listen, in your growth, how you and I live, what we say, what we do, what how we use our money, how we use our time, is it worthy of the Lord?

Colossians 1:10 goes on, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. Can you say today, no matter who you are, that your life is honoring to God? And you take this little test now in your own heart. Yes, my life is honoring to God or I think my life could be more honoring to God. Well, we all can confess to that. And is my life something that is pleasing to him? Am I being fruitful in every good work that is Am I presenting my resource of self to God saying, Lord, how and what do you want me to do?

And are we increasing in the knowledge of God? Are you growing? If this church Listen, I mean this seriously. If we were not growing as individuals Please don't misunderstand me. I almost It almost sounded like I made a mistake there for a second in the sense that if we're not growing Do you understand what I'm talking about size and numbers? That's ridiculous. Numbers, size. God is not interested in number size. If you're here tonight and you're hungry and you want to grow and you want to have your life changed, as the Bible says, from glory to glory, you're becoming more like Jesus, that's what we are interested in.

Why? Because that's what God is interested in. That's what he's all about.

David J: You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.

Jack Hibbs: So the purposes of God for life is this. Number one, life and his expectation. His purpose is for life. And in our lives as believers, there's an expectation. He says, He also spoke this parable saying, A certain man had a fig tree planted his vineyard. And this is a beautiful picture. And he came seeking fruit on it and found none. The vineyards are laid out. You can see it in your mind's eye. Especially, you know, we kind of spoiled because if you drive up great portions of California, you can see these vineyards. And every so often, if you've seen this scene, uh there'll be vineyards and you'll see Now, in California, you'll see a big oak tree, maybe a big oak in the middle of the vineyard.

And think of that same picture in Israel, but there'll be a fig tree there. And that fertile ground is so powerful in producing wine and grapes that the tree benefits greatly from the health of the vineyard around it. So the setting is gorgeous, the setting is beautiful, and this fig tree is just in full glory in all of its leaves and all of its health. And if any of you have fig trees, they have that big leaf, beautiful big leaf. And you've got to approach the tree and look at the tree carefully to see if it got figs on it or not.

Because the leaves are so big. Keep that in mind. It's going to matter. There's an expectation. If you see a fig tree with leaves, you should expect something. Listen to this. The Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 1, Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children. Walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. What a beautiful picture that is. What would this fruit look like if Jesus in his parable is saying it's to be found? Now, in this case, Jesus is saying there was no fruit found.

And again, if you have figs Do you guys Anybody have fig trees? They kind of almost I hate to admit this, but they in my backyard uh we used to have fig trees and I cut them down. And um It's kind of unbiblical, huh? Maybe I should let them grow. Why? Because all you need is one fig to drop down to the ground and now you got figs everywhere. And those things will grow out of the side of a rock. I mean they're amazing. Isn't it amazing that God likens Israel as to a fig tree?

I mean look how look how many times Israel's been whacked by the nations of the world and it just keeps coming back. And uh even today I should have taken a picture. I don't know why I didn't do this. Even today, studying for this, I looked out of my backyard cuz I remembered where the fig tree used to be and I looked out there and guess what? Almost 1 and 1/2 ft tall is now many multiple shoots of the fig tree popping up. And I felt so bad. I thought, I need I need to cut that thing down.

But uh listen, all those little guys that are growing right now came because my fig tree had figs. I went out and I looked at it and I found figs. And it's growing. They're growing. Jesus says And he's likening it to himself. He comes and he sees the nation of Israel and there's no fruit. There's nothing there. The nation was to be imitating God's word. The nation of Israel had the Old Testament Scriptures that was to ready them for the New Testament revelation. You might say, Yeah, that that's right. That's right. Wait a minute. You and I have the Old Testament and the new and the Holy Spirit in us as believers.

If anyone was to ever be imitators of Christ, I'm looking at him and you're looking at me. It's us. And so the question is, when Jesus comes looking, does he find fruit in our lives? This is not an option. This is an examination. This is uh This is the final exam, as it were. The next thing is this. God's purpose for life is his provision. He provides. It says here that the man had noticed this in verse 6, a fig tree planted. This is cool because the man had a fig. Watch. He had either uh a fig that the sprout or the newly grown uh trunk was coming out of the fig and he plants it in his vineyard.

The whole word implies that the landowner went out there and found a place and when he planted it, he could have basically said, I'm going to put this tree right in the best spot of this vineyard so it has every opportunity to grow. Every bit of provision was given that that tree might grow. And I'm wondering tonight if you and I could say, in all honesty, that in your life, in my life, we could see how God planted us at some certain time. When did you come to know Christ? What What was your experience in coming to know Jesus?

And I want to argue with you and say that I bet you, according to the word of God, that he planted you at a time of life and in a place of life according to God at just the right time and in just the right type of soil that he has determined. He didn't ask the fig, Where would you like to be planted? He knew. And I like the hope that that gives all of us. Wherever we're at Listen, wherever we're at, let's just take tonight right now. Wherever we're at in the world, God has planted you there.

To grow. Well, if I just lived in some other state, I could grow. Not Not according to God. Well, you know what? Um if I just had If I was in some other And if I were in in on and on, we would say, Well, you know, not according to God. God has engineered you and I to be growing where he's planted us. And we could look around and not trust God and say, Well, if I had better resources, if I had more of this, and if I had more of that, and Maybe there's somebody For example, you know, the Midwest, there's areas in the Midwest.

I've been down uh I was uh went to speak at the I forget what it was. The It was a Chick-fil-A thing uh outside Atlanta, Georgia. And uh let me tell you something. Have you ever been to Georgia?

Congregation: Yes.

Jack Hibbs: Uh I'd never been before. I was landed, got in the car, drove to this location. There's a church on every corner.

Congregation: Yeah.

Jack Hibbs: Everywhere. And I 'm wondering You would literally pull up to a four-way intersection and there's a church on each corner and you wonder, How does this work? But you're wondering if the word of God is presented even in a community, little community where there's four churches on each corner, guess what? If God is at work, there'll be somebody from the community that will go to that church, somebody from the the community that will go to this other church. Why? Have you ever gone out on a Friday night to go get something to eat? Is Is Carl's Jr.

packed? Is Chick-fil-A packed? Is uh you know uh In-N-Out Burger packed? Is And of course, Wahoo's is packed cuz Jesus is there eating, you know. But what's the deal? God is reaching his people in the community that they're at. They're coming to feed upon the word of God just like people in the community. You would not think that these places would be packed out, but yet they have a different diet. They're getting food. They're getting fed, different diet. Why? Strength. Spiritually, God wants his people to grow. And he provides. God radically provides.

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called Parable of the Barren Tree. Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Parables of Jesus. It's a series highlighting the teachings of Jesus while he was ministering here on this earth. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

Jack Hibbs: Pastor Jack, this is pretty exciting. Uh we're coming up on the 2-year anniversary of Real Life Network.

David J: Yeah.

Jack Hibbs: That's pretty amazing, isn't it? That's beyond amazing.

David J: We We launched this thing what over 2 years ago, just a little over 2 years ago. And it's been exciting. I mean it's been quite a ride, right? Some people call it the Netflix of the Christian world.

Jack Hibbs: Almost, yeah. Yeah.

David J: That's pretty cool.

Jack Hibbs: Yeah, absolutely. It has exploded. For those of you who don't know, you've got to do this. It's free. Go to your uh applications and get this app. It's the Real Life Network app. And it's 24/7 365 100% Christian character-based material and the programming. We started out, David, 2 years ago with a fledgling handful of some broadcast and some content. And it has exploded. A 70 million

David J: Yeah. Yeah.

Jack Hibbs: minutes of broadcast time has already been invested in by the viewers. And listen, here's what's shocking, everybody. God blessed us so much during COVID that we wanted to create a cancel-free, sensor-free Christian network. And it's not only free for you, the user, it's free for all of the ministries broadcasting because God has paid the bill. It's been amazing.

David J: Yeah. What's coming up next? What's right around the corner?

Jack Hibbs: Wow, I have to be careful to say

David J: Okay.

Jack Hibbs: uh a lot. Um we have caught the eye

David J: Go ahead.

Jack Hibbs: of some wonderful producers of great content. One of them is the fine people at PragerU who are famous for not only their conservative worldview positions, but PragerU is famous for their 5-minute videos. Uh PragerU. Uh so we'll be working with them uh shortly.

David J: Love PragerU. Love PragerU.

Jack Hibbs: And uh we're going to We've been invited by uh Blaze TV. They're at Mercury One in Dallas, Texas to join up with the Blaze TV. And we are going to uh be doing some pretty exciting things with the Real Life Network and the Blaze TV. And uh there's more, uh but we'll save that for later.

David J: Sounds good. So if you haven't checked it out already, that's the Real Life Network streaming the best in Christian and conservative content. Sign up and start streaming today for free at reallifenetwork.com. That's reallifenetwork.com. Did you know that along with the radio program, Pastor Jack also has a TV show with more of the Pastor Jack Hibbs content that you like? It's called Real Life TV. If you enjoy Pastor Jack on the radio, you're going to love him on TV. So check out your local listings or visit jackhibbs.com and catch the latest episodes. That's jackhibbs.com. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners.

Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in his word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.